Professor Willow: Turning the Real World into a Lab

He's the only Pokémon professor whose field site is your own neighborhood. Professor Willow welcomes Pokémon GO players, explains the basics of catching and entrusts them with a first partner. Behind that welcoming role, he's pursuing a specific investigation: finding out where Pokémon live and how they're distributed — a question no researcher can settle alone.

Contents

• A Researcher Whose Lab Is Outdoors
• The First Fifteen Minutes: A Starter and Three Teams
• Research, or the Player Promoted to Assistant
• Saule, Willow and a Kozaki Design
• Professor Willow at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Researcher Whose Lab Is Outdoors

The series' professors receive visitors in their labs and send Trainers out to gather data for them. Willow, on the contrary, devotes most of his work to fieldwork, to understand where species live and how they're distributed.

That's not a question a single pair of eyes can answer. He relies on Pokémon GO players all over the world, for whom Field Research serves as an observation protocol. The setup fits the very nature of the game, which you play on foot.

His biography fits in one line, and it carries weight: he was once an assistant to Professor Oak, and he still turns to him whenever his research hits a wall. The Kanto professor remains his scientific point of reference.

The First Fifteen Minutes: A Starter and Three Teams

Willow steps in right after the player has set up their appearance. He moves straight on to the essentials of catching and the basic features: the tutorial role traditionally filled by the series' professors.

He then offers a first partner Pokémon, which the player gets to choose: Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle. A fourth one exists without being offered: Pikachu, which stays hidden unless you go looking for it.

Three assistants round out his organization, each leading a team with its own research goal: Spark leads Instinct, Blanche leads Mystic and Candela leads Valor. So the choice the player has to make isn't really about team color, but about which research program they sign up for.

🌱 The starting trio has its own section: check out our Pokémon starters.

Research, or the Player Promoted to Assistant

Willow's work relies on two formats entrusted to the player: Field Research and Special Research. The former feeds his investigation into species' habitats and distribution; the latter unfolds a longer research thread.

Above all, this work helps him document what an ordinary survey never comes across. Mythical Pokémon benefit the most: Mew, Celebi and Meltan are among the species these research tasks help him learn more about.

The exchange is crystal clear, and it shapes the whole gameplay loop: the player's progress and the researcher's progress are one and the same. Where other professors lend you a Pokédex to fill in, this one turns his community into a network of observers.

Saule, Willow and a Kozaki Design

French players from the early days didn't know him by that name. At the game's launch, the French version called him Saule (French for "willow"), before he was brought in line with the name Willow used in the other versions.

His look is the work of Yusuke Kozaki, who also designed Blanche, Spark and Candela. The four faces at the heart of the game therefore come from the same hand, which explains their obvious family resemblance.

The character eventually made it out of the app. He first appeared on a promo card in the summer of 2021, then in the Pokémon GO expansion of the Trading Card Game, which arrived in France on July 1, 2022.

Professor Willow at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Professor Willow?
  He's the Pokémon professor of Pokémon GO. He welcomes the player, explains catching and the game's basic features, and in parallel carries out field research on where species live and how they're distributed.
• Why is he sometimes called Saule?
  Because that was his name in the French version when the game launched. He was later brought in line with Willow, the name used in the other versions.
• Which starter Pokémon does Professor Willow offer?
  He lets the player choose between Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. A fourth starter exists without being offered: Pikachu, which stays hidden.
• Who are Spark, Blanche and Candela?
  His three assistants. Each one leads a team pursuing its own research goal: Spark leads Team Instinct, Blanche Team Mystic and Candela Team Valor.
• What are Field Research and Special Research for?
  They let the player contribute to Willow's research. They help him learn more about Pokémon, especially Mythical ones like Mew, Celebi and Meltan.

In short

Professor Willow has no Gym, no team and no rivalry: his contribution lies entirely in his method. By turning millions of players into observers of one shared investigation into Pokémon habitats, he transplants the professor's job into a game that's played outdoors. The Pokédex stops being a checklist and becomes a collective survey.